Monday at 9AM was the first time the new and not-so-improved Watauga County Board of Elections met, a Board now controlled by Republican Tea Partiers (2-1) with a clear mission to suppress any and all suspected progressive votes in time for the upcoming municipal elections, especially for the Town of Boone, the county seat. And to do it undercover as fast as possible.

While the meeting had originally been scheduled for a large room in the County’s Administration building, the Republicans quickly changed the location to a small Board room in the elections office in an effort to discourage public attendance. Didn’t work. Before the two Republicans were forced to move meeting, as required by law in light of all the people there to witness the travesty, just wet your whistle with what went down at the start. Seriously. Take a look at this. It will blow your mind.

Watauga County Board of Elections Meeting: Part 1:

Two Republican Board board members came to the meeting with a prepared – but-clearly-not-by-them – anti-democratic agenda to:

1. Eliminate the Appalachian State University (ASU) early one-stop voting site.

2. Force all early voting into one location hard to access by students, faculty, and staff at ASU.

3. Outlaw any verbal public comment at Board meetings and require that written comments be screened to ensure they were “pertinent” and communicated without cussing or libel.

4. Require that the 27-year Elections Board Director, a woman totally on the straight up and beloved by the entire county, not be allowed to meet with anyone in her office without supervision.

5. Mandate that anyone calling into the local BOE office have their names recorded.

6. Move the “New River” precinct (a heavily populated precinct in and around the town of Boone) out into the very corner of the precinct into a virtually unknown location and as far away from municipal voters as possible.

7. Combine three Boone precincts into one Super Precinct consisting of 9,300 voters and 35 parking spaces and away as far as possible from ASU.

Part 2 of the Watauga County election board meeting is one hour long but well worth the watch if you have any interest or doubt that a deadly serious anti-democracy movement is sweeping the nation. Aspiring fascists are destroying representational government of, by and for the people by infiltrating local election boards, school boards, as well as all three branches of local, state and federal government. The Watauga County election board meeting is but one small, yet poignant example of the ham-fisted tactics being used to pass anti-democratic legislation.

The bottom line is this: If more people don’t begin to step-up and stop them, they will win.